Thinkstock

By Jennie Rose

Summer can be a mixed bag, a combination of relief from the stress of school, followed by boredom, the bugaboo of a creative mind. The break from school offers a chance to carve out enriching, fun projects and beat the doldrums brought about by summer loafing. The warm weather is a great invitation to enjoy and learn about the outdoors during this time off. Here are 10  learning opportunities for kids to come away from the summer months invigorated with fresh skills.

1. EMBARK ON BIRDWATCHING ADVENTURES. Local chapters of the Audubon Society host birdwatching outings, where those new to birding can benefit from the expertise of the pros. Kids can learn about the local ecosystem, as well as wildlife adaptability and habitat preservation. If birding catches their fancy, they can keep the adventures going with YardMap, a citizen science project designed to cultivate a richer understanding of bird habitat. The YardMap network lets you draw your landscapes with a beautiful online mapping tool and connect to other citizen scientists, solve problems, share maps and ideas, all while helping to build database of habitat data for Cornell Lab of Ornithology Scientists.

Flickr:EdwardGoodwin

2. GO ON A HIGH-TECH TREASURE HUNT. With a GPS device and coordinates from geocache.com, kids can participate in a scavenger hunt and look for one of a million treasure spots around the world. If they find the cache or hidden treasure, they can re-hide it in the same place or stash their own goodies in a hidden spot. The best part is logging the finds and sharing their experiences on the site.

3. HANG A ROPE SWING. With about 10 feet of rope and a buntline hitch knot, it’s easy to build a tree swing. Kids can learn knotting and building skills and do the math to determine attachment points and rope lengths. If the backyard won’t work, there’s always the nearest park.

4. FARM THE BACKYARD. Anyone with any amount of space can grow food. Whether it’s starting a small herb garden on the fire escape or building raised beds in the backyard, the process of growing food allows kids to develop an understanding about our food sources, nutrition, how irrigation works, even the importance of supporting local growers. Plus, they’ll benefit from having the responsibility of taking charge of their own important project.

Flickr:FlyingSinger

5. MAP THE RED PLANET. Kids can help scientists improve maps of Mars and participate in other research tasks to aid NASA in managing the large amount of data from the Red Planet. Users create Martian profiles and become “citizens” of the planet. In the map room, they can then earn Martian credits by helping place satellite photos on Mars’s surface, counting craters, and even helping the rovers Spirit and Opportunity by tagging photos with descriptions.

6. PERFECT THE AIM. Nothing enhances visual acuity and predictive ability like target practice. Archery clubs can be found in most cities and welcome all ages (grade school) and skill levels.  Start by attending a tournament or taking a lesson at an archery range.

7. ACTIVELY LISTEN. The Acoustics Research Centre at the University of Salford is building a sound map of the world as part of a new study into how sounds in our everyday environment make us feel. Kids can use a mobile phone to record 10 to 15 second clips from different soundscapes, upload the clips to our virtual map, along with opinions and ideas about the recorded sounds.

8. ORGANIZE A RECYCLING PROGRAM. Kids can learn about leading a recycling project by organizing a group of young recyclers. Local recycling centers, municipality and waste haulers often list the types of materials that are accepted. Apart from learning about sustainability and limited resources, kids will build leadership skills.

Flickr:KarenRoe

9. HELP POLLINATORS. Kids can join the nationwide effort in tracking bee pollination by taking 15-minute counts of the number and types of bees that buzz around sunflowers and other plants. With data collected from the public, the Great Sunflower Project can determine where pollinator service is strong or weak compared to averages. Native Buzz is another citizen science project created by the University of Florida Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab. Kids can also keep track of their own native buzz nest site and see the results of other participant’s nest sites. Or help pollinators in their own way by building or buying own bee houses, and provide nesting habitats for bees.

10. RESCUE ANIMALS. Conservation non-profits offer summertime youth volunteer programs that introduce students ages 15 to 17 to the importance of volunteerism. By volunteering at the local SPCA or with a marine mammal rescue facility, kids can work alongside adults, develop interpersonal skills, and observe professional scientists.

Project NOAH

By Audrey Watters

Citizen science expands scientific inquiry and research from academics, researchers, and clinicians to include volunteers “outside the lab,” if you will, many of whom do not have formal scientific training. Volunteers — individuals and large networks of people — aid scientific projects through observations, calculations, and other support efforts.

Here’s a list of a few apps and websites that take advantage of the cellphone’s camera and/or GPS, that would make good tools for budding scientists.

1. Project Noah

Project Noah lets you document the wildlife around you. You can post a new spotting, upload photos, tag plants and animals with location data, join missions, and earn patches. The app also contains a field guide to help you identify the wildlife you find. It’s beautifully designed, and available for free for both iPhone and Android.

2. iNaturalist

iNaturalist is a social network for nature-lovers. It’s an online community where you can record and share your observations from the natural world. iNaturalist has just released an iPhone app that lets you log the plants and animals you come across. If you need help identifying things, the rest of the iNaturalist community can help.

3. The WildLab

The WildLab has two apps currently available for the iPhone — Crab App and WildLab Bird — and you can sign up as a spotter via its website. The WildLab Bird app, as the name suggests, involves identifying and geo-tagging bird species. The Crab App helps collect information about horseshoe crabs, their numbers and their egg-laying.

4. Project Squirrel

There’s no mobile app for Project Squirrel, but what I love about this citizen science project nonetheless is the recognition that almost everyone — no matter where they live — has squirrels in their neighborhood. That, along with the differences between the gray squirrel and the fox squirrel — in appearance, in habitat — make Project Squirrel a great introductory citizen science project. The website lets you record your squirrel observations and upload photos. You can even mail in your data via a printable form.

Read more about Citizen Science projects.

Project Feederwatch

Student's rendering of birds.

By Sara Bernard

Scientists have figured out a way to leverage student enthusiasm in the sciences: conduct research that can be used for data collection.

So when ornithologists at Cornell University study breeding and nesting behavior, when NASA researchers need an extra few thousand pairs of eyes on a telescope, and when biologists and gardeners investigate changes in ladybug populations, they ask K-12 students to participate in the research — often as part of their regular class curriculum.

This isn’t, of course, about getting kids to do a PhD’s grunt work. It serves both parties well. Scientists acquire necessary data (sometimes even the miraculous kind, like rare nine-spotted ladybugs) while students get to work on real-world research projects.

Often, the scientific community also provides detailed lesson plans, online tools, and other resources to the students and teachers involved.

Here are 5 examples of citizen scientists programs across the country.

1) Cornell Lab of Ornithology Citizen Science program

This is a set of kid-friendly research projects on all things bird-related, from pigeons to feeder-watching to a middle school curriculum called BirdSleuth. Students can count birds and upload data using eBird and the Great Backyard Bird Count, promote urban conservation through Celebrate Urban Birds, and use photo-tagging tools to help scientists sort 8 million NestCam images. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has also created SciencePipes, a free site that allows users to access biodiversity data, create visual representations of that data, and embed them into their own Web pages.

2) Encyclopedia of Life

The project encourages students, teachers, and scientists around the world to document as many of the earth’s roughly 1.9 million species as possible. Entry points for students include the Bioblitz — or local species inventory, which allows students to upload their findings and try classroom activities — and the Field Guide tool, a way to organize species information based on location. The site (free and Creative-Commons licensed) also provides educational podcasts and examples of model projects.

3) DiscoverLife

The Bee Hunt and the Lost Ladybug Project are two limbs of the nonprofit that helps lead step-by-step ecological research projects via simple Web tools. In order to figure out why some ladybug populations are booming while others are nearing extinction, kids and teachers can spot and upload photos of ladybugs in their local communities and check out map tools and educational materials. The Bee Hunt uses similar methods to determine the effect of climate change on various pollinators.

4) Lewis Center for Educational Research’s Academy for Academic Excellence

At this charter school in Apple Valley, California, kids monitor telescopes and rockets — among many other real-world, project-based activities — and send their observations straight to NASA. NASA’s Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope, which now officially belongs to the Lewis Center’s school, is open to students and teachers across the country to use as a learning tool. Participating students get a grasp of radio astronomy, teachers receive professional development training, and NASA gets to take home information about objects in the universe.

5) Project BudBurst

A national field campaign to collect ecological data about the flowering and fruiting of plants, is a way for students (and adults) to learn about the effects of global warming from their own backyards. Participants in all 50 states have recorded their observations and sent them into the BudBurst results database. A branch of the campaign, BudBurst Buddies, is designed for young learners, complete with friendly characters, an observation journal, and certificate of completion if they make at least four contributions.